COLUMBUS — Thad Matta believes in momentum the way preschoolers believe in Santa Claus and a tooth fairy.

“It’s hard to put words on it in terms of how much I believe momentum can get you going,” the Ohio State men’s basketball coach said. “That’s what great teams do. They can take a punch, even get knocked down, but they get back up and kind of swing momentum to their side.”

The Buckeyes have taken their share of punches this season. After going 15-0 and being ranked No. 3, the team is playing .500 basketball. They endured four consecutive losses and five in six games in January, then limped into Sunday with nationally ranked Michigan State having lost back-to-back at Penn State and Indiana, a pair of second-division teams in the Big Ten.

“It’s all about moving forward,” Ohio State senior point guard Aaron Craft said before the Michigan State game. “It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, and the last three years it’s been how well we’ve played coming down the stretch. This year it’s the other side of the coin.”

Hiccups in the middle of a Big Ten season aren’t uncommon, especially for the bulk of the players on this year’s Buckeye roster.

Ohio State lost three of four games in one stretch in 2012-13. The year before, the Buckeyes lost three in five games in February.

“I can say every season I’ve been here, we went through a rough patch. But we (were) always able to come out of it no matter what,” Ohio State junior forward LaQuinton Ross said.

Two years ago, the Buckeyes rallied to win their final two games of the regular season to earn a Big Ten championship. They went to the conference final and the Final Four. In 2012-13, they answered with 11 consecutive wins to take the Big Ten Tournament title and make a run to the Elite Eight.

“We can get that going. If you get hot at the right time, that’s the name of the game,” Ohio State senior guard Lenzelle Smith Jr. said before the season finale. “You want to play your best basketball toward this time of the season, and I think we can accomplish that.”

Answering a couple of double-digit runs by the Spartans and rallying for a 69-67 win might have done wonders for a team whose psyche had to be dinged.

“We did what we should have been doing all year,” Ross said. “At the end of the game, down the stretch, we all got together and fought. If you watch some of our old games and watched us at the end of the games, it looked like we didn’t know what we (were) doing out there.”

Playing a Michigan State team with all its players back and no excuses, the Buckeyes overcame a 2-for-8 stretch at the foul line in the final 88 seconds to win. The Spartans were held to just four points in the final seven minutes.

“Everybody knows what this team is capable of when we come to play,” Smith said. “We play good basketball. I think this game will be a huge booster for us. I’m excited to see what type of ball we’ll start playing now that our train is back on track.”

Ohio State felt that away after answering the January slump with huge road wins at Wisconsin and Iowa. The Buckeyes were feeling good about themselves after playing their finest second half of the season against Minnesota, only to lose the next two games.

“We’ve had a couple of big wins throughout this year and we haven’t bounced back the way we needed to,” Craft warned. “Every year, you go into postseason play and say it’s a clean slate and it doesn’t matter what you’ve done to this point. It’s no different here. Hopefully we can build off this momentum.”

During the past 10 years, no one in the league is better than Matta when the calendar flips to March. He’s 54-14 in the span, an almost .800 winning percentage. He’s also earned four conference tourney titles and played in the championship game seven times. Ohio State has gone to four consecutive Sweet 16s. No one else in the country can say the same right now.